Bicycle Thieves [Criterion Collection]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

This landmark Italian neorealist drama became one of the best-known and most widely acclaimed European movies, including a special Academy Award as "most outstanding foreign film" seven years before that Oscar category existed. Written primarily by neorealist pioneer Cesare Zavattini and directed by Vittorio DeSica, also one of the movement's main forces, the movie featured all the hallmarks of the neorealist style: a simple story about the lives of ordinary people, outdoor shooting and lighting, non-actors mixed together with actors, and a focus on social problems in the aftermath of World War II. Lamberto Maggiorani plays Antonio, an unemployed man who finds a coveted job that requires a bicycle. When it is stolen on his first day of work, Antonio and his young son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) begin a frantic search, learning valuable lessons along the way. The movie focuses on both the relationship between the father and the son and the larger framework of poverty and unemployment in postwar Italy. As in such other classic films as Shoeshine (1946), Umberto D. (1952), and his late masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), DeSica focuses on the ordinary details of ordinary lives as a way to dramatize wider social issues. As a result, The Bicycle Thief works as a sentimental study of a father and son, a historical document, a social statement, and a record of one of the century's most influential film movements. ~ Leo Charney, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 2
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
• Screen: Black and White
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Features:
  • Disc one: The film
  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Disc two: The supplements
  • Working with De Sica, a collection of new interviews with screenwriter Suso Cecchi d'Amico, actor Enzo Staiola, and film scholar Callisto Cosulich
  • Life as It Is: The Neorealist Movement in Italy, a new program on the history of Italian neorealism, featuring scholar Mark Shiel
  • A 2003 documentary on screenwriter and longtime Vittorio De Sica collaborator Cesare Zavattini, directed by Carlo Lizzani
  • Plus: A book featuring new essays by critic Godfrey Cheshire and filmmaker Charles Burnett, remembrances by De Sica and his collaborators, and classic writings by Zavattini and critic Andre Bazin

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Nominated Best Screenplay - 1949 (Cesare Zavattini)

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Won Best Film - Any Source - 1949 (Vittorio De Sica)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Won Best Foreign Film - 1949

• National Board of Review

•     Won Best Director - 1949 (Vittorio De Sica)
•     Won Best Picture - 1949

• New York Film Critics Circle

•     Won Best Foreign Film - 1949

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Lamberto Maggiorani - Antonio Ricci
       Lianella Carell - Maria Ricci
       Enzo Staiola - Bruno Ricci
       Elena Altieri - The Lady
       Vittorio Antonucci - The Thief
       Gino Saltamerenda - Bajocco
       Fausto Guerzoni - Amateur Actor

• Director:

  Vittorio De Sica

• Producer:

  Vittorio De Sica

• Screenwriter:

  O. Biancoli, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Adolfo Franci

• Book Author:

  Luigi Bartolini

• Cinematographer:

  Carlo Montuori

• Composer (Music Score):

  Alessandro Cicognini

• Editor:

  Eraldo Da Roma

• Art Director:

  Antonio Traverso

REVIEW:

• Though not the first Italian Neo-Realist film seen outside of Italy (or even Vittorio De Sica's first Neo-Realist work), The Bicycle Thief (1948) is considered the seminal film of the movement, alongside Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945). Following the guiding Neo-Realist precept of drawing stories from the daily life of post-war Italy, De Sica and writer Cesare Zavattini carefully interweave a wider view of Italian culture with a portrait of the bond between a father and son, revealing the impact of poverty and bureaucratic absurdities on one of many struggling families. Shooting on location with non-professional actors in the two leads (well-coached by actor De Sica), De Sica's mobile camera transforms moments of Antonio's odyssey into poetic images of isolation and despair, while never losing sight of the gritty hardships of quotidian experience. An even greater international sensation than his first Neo-Realist film (Shoeshine (1946)), The Bicycle Thief earned a special Oscar for Best Foreign Film and became a signature work for a movement that also included Bitter Rice (1948), Luchino Visconti's La Terra Trema (1948), and De Sica's Umberto D. (1952). Inspiring filmmakers across the world as an alternative to expensive Hollywood fantasy, The Bicycle Thief revealed the potential power of combining local concerns with an unflinching cinematic style. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi